


Exceeded Expectations

by yue_ix



Category: She Keeps Me Warm - Mary Lambert (Music Video)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Books, Coffee Shops, Dorks in Love, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:29:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yue_ix/pseuds/yue_ix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A month into being a barista at the Bookclub Café, Bee signed herself up for some of the few classes missing to get her diploma. She moved out of her father's and got a place of her own 20 bus minutes away from both school and work. </p><p>It was around that time a customer first walked up to the counter and asked for a caramel iced coffee while looking around for her friend's study group. She had gorgeous dimples and said thanks when getting her coffee. When the group disbanded for the night at closing time, she left last, moving around  coins of .25, .10 and .05 cents: a 5$ tip arranged into a smiley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exceeded Expectations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perpetual_wallflower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetual_wallflower/gifts).



> Thank you Kai for the lightning SPaG check! <3

Bee worked at a small coffee place down her street for most of her college summer breaks, going part-time during the year.

Customers were few and no matter the tips, it was a good thing she still lived at her father's place. On the other hand, she could drink as much coffee as she wanted and since the place took twenty minutes max to wipe down, floor to tables, it always left her ample time to doodle on her arm and make to-do lists on her knees. She didn't expect anything out of it yet found herself settling there.

A year in, the place got bought and franchised. The two employees were encouraged to reapply but the new manager took one look at Bee's short hair, then stared at her tattooed arms for the rest of the interview as if waiting for them to pounce. 

A month later, Bee started working at the Bookclub instead.

The Bookclub café moved into University Village shopping center in April 2005 and had stayed thriving there ever since. It redecorated only once, when it built a mezzanine to accommodate ever growing groups of students, and changed its themes from soothing sand yellow to earthy browns and greens. With a counter, round tables and well-stocked bookshelves, it was strategically wedged between monster shops, offering a more relaxed environment for people to rest weary feet and wallets or converge in studious groups.

On her first day, Bee deeply breathed in the complicated mix of herbs, beans and sugar. Everyone smiled back at her.

A week in, she heard smiles in regulars' greetings and knew by the tone of newcomers which kind of drinks they would most likely ask for. She got herself a nose piercing with her first paycheck. Constant orders kept her hands busy, her mind creative and her pockets full.

A month later, she signed herself up for some of the few classes missing to get her diploma. She moved out of her father's and got a place of her own 20 bus minutes away from both school and work.

It was around that time a customer first walked up to the counter and asked for a caramel iced coffee while looking around for her friend's study group. She had gorgeous dimples and said thanks when getting her coffee. When the group disbanded for the night at closing time, she left last, moving around coins of .25, .10 and .05 cents: a 5$ tip arranged into a smiley.

*

At her own request, Bee worked more nights than not. Tips were good, people were more inclined to be typing at a computer than needing to talk to baristas about the minutia of their lives at rush hour, and for a few hours the clientele was mostly college and university students, which she hoped she'd get along with.

The smiley girl started stopping by on her own. Twice or three times weekly, she came in with a book tucked under one arm while fetching a battered wallet out of her bright purses. Her lipstick matched her clothes and her glances made Bee want to draw anatomically correct hearts tucked into fuzzy sweaters on napkins. She drew silly faces on them instead, and slipped them under or around the girl's drinks whenever she was the one delivering them to her table.

*

Autumn was in full blow when Bee met Gabriel. Or rather, when Gabriel came up to her while she was wiping down a table, empty mug dangling from one hand, and said “Her name is Arcie.”

“Huh. Hi. Sorry?”

The guy smiled. “Hi. I'm Gabriel. I'm with that study group over there,” he nodded towards the girl's group, his feather earring swinging wildly. The lot of them were currently engaged in what looked like a heated discussion about a book with a blue cover. “And her name,” he pointed to the girl with a thumb over his shoulder, “is Arcie. In case you wanted to know. Since you've been, you know, looking. For quite a while.”

Bee instantly refocused on scratching a dried dark spill with her too-short, bitten nails. “No I wasn't.”

“Huh huh. Too bad. I _was_ going to tell you things about her to feed your stationary stalking. But I guess that'd be awkward, since you aren't interested and all.”

Bee scratched at the stain for a few seconds more before wiping her palms on her pants. “If you come to the counter, I'll get you your refill. But don't expect it to be free. Though you are welcome to talk to me there, for the time it takes to brew your pick. About anything. Or any...yeah. But nothing obtrusive. Or creepy. Or that I couldn't guess mostly by just looking. Deal?”

Gabriel toasted to it, and that was that.

Bee predictably didn't learn much about Arcie in 35 second increments (attends Seattle Uni, always walks to the Café instead of taking the bus, prefers fuchsia over candy pink). It became an inside joke, and soon they greeted each other by trading random light information or observations about others and themselves.

Other baristas joined in, and within a week Bee accidentally revealed her secret adolescent dream of opening a cat-used-shoestore - “like those bookstores with tons of cats flopping around, right? But for shoes I'd re-design myself” - and no one let her live it down, but that was alright. She discovered them too.

Kasey of the morning shifts had once lost two of their teeth while ice-skating on an outdoor pool, Jeremy from the GAP store next door knew 5 languages, Gabriel once had a best friend called Gabrielle that he passed as his twin sister, the octogenarian who always came in after supper time had a pineapple allergy.

One sentence at a time, Bee's world unfolded like a map.

*

“You should go home,” Gabriel said one Friday night, picking his first refill of the night.

Bee resisted the urge to wipe her nose on her sleeve. She didn't want to blow it and have to clean her hands yet again because the tissue invariably overloaded. Ugh.

“Can't. 's'Friday. Bookclub's busy.”

The newest recruit, Maria, bumped her elbow into Bee while passing behind her. “Go home.”

Bee turned to accuse her of treachery but sneezed mid-way there and ended up doing a full spin. “Waa-ow.”

“Go home,” Kasey said, shaking their head. “Or at least stay here and sit down.”

Bee pulled a face at all of them but gingerly perched on the rickety stool behind the counter.

She was mulishly tearing apart a napkin when a shadow fell over her. She twisted her head without lifting it, then bolted upright, overbalanced, and caught herself by the tips of her fingers on the counter.

“Heyyyy hi! What can I get ya? You.”

Arcie ducked her head, hair falling over her eyes and slightly flushed cheeks, before raising her chin and tucking her hair behind her ear. “Do you have something that'd be good for a flu?”

Bee nodded and stood on tiptoes to pull down a selection of spiced teas. “Is it officially a plague yet?”

When Arcie didn't answer, Bee looked over her shoulder. Arcie was staring dazzlingly at Bee's back. Bee sympathized. Her mind had kept getting lost all day long too. “Here,” she offered a choice of half a dozen drinks.

Arcie startled out of her thoughts. “Oh, thank you. Which would you recommend?”

Bee studied each label. She pushed forward the lemony infusion mix. “This one’s also got a hint of mint.”

“Sounds great. One for right now, please.”

It steeped while Bee rang the order up, then she nodded along as Arcie talked about her day. The shop had considerably slowed down as the night fell, and Bee allowed herself a few minutes of leaning towards Arcie, breathing the same steam. Arcie was playing with the tea's label sticking out of the mug, twinning it between her fingers. Her nails were striped green, matching her red tuque. 

After a while, Arcie asked, “Is it about ready now?”

“Oh! Yeah. Absolutely. S'probably been for a while, really. Sorry.”

Arcie smiled. “It's no problem.” She pushed the mug towards Bee, until Bee had to curl her hands around the warm ceramic to avoid splashing it on her lap. “Enjoy.”

“What?”

Arcie stepped away from the counter “I've got to go now, Gabe's giving me a ride because of the storm. Feel better.” Behind her, Gabriel was standing by the door. He held the door for Arcie and waved at Bee over-enthusiastically. She mimed a rude gesture back at him. He laughed.

Bee sipped her herbal tea up to closing hour and took a few packets home.

*

Arcie's copy of Great Expectations had plenty of literary scribbles in the margins in cursive handwriting. Bee paged through them in between clients in three days, knowing Arcie went to her hometown for the weekends, and not a single word of the actual book.

She concluded the book was about a dandy confessing his secret kinky desire for compasses.

When she shared this view with Melodie, another member of Arcie's study group, Melodie choked on her smoothie for a whole minute.

The next night, Arcie came to fetch her book back.

A Bookclub flyer was tucked between the last few pages. “Me too” was scrawled on the back in block letters.

The original note stayed folded in Bee's wallet.

*

Mid-terms sneaked upon everyone. Bee had paint ricochets up to her elbows and the pads of her fingers were flat from constant button pushing. The circles under her eyes were a direct result of both late nights and rubbed charcoal.

When Gabriel invited her to a poetry slam he and some friends were attending the following week’s Spring Break, she agreed in a fog.

When a few days later, she heard Melodie ask the same of Arcie, and Arcie agreed just as absentmindedly, Bee realized they had been well played. She didn't mind.

*

On a friend-of-a-friend's rooftops, amongst people Bee had learned to know one shared secret at a time, Bee and Arcie kissed the first time.

She hadn't made plans for her life to happen this way, or seen any of this coming. She certainly had hoped, in that vague young way of simply wanting good things for oneself, and improvising as events happened. 

What she got exceeded expectations.


End file.
